Rare earth elements (REEs) and their
compounds are essential for
rapidly developing modern technologies. These materials are especially
critical in the area of green/sustainable energy; however, only very
high-purity fractions are appropriate for these applications. Yet,
achieving efficient REE separation and purification in an economically
and environmentally effective way remains a challenge. Moreover, current
extraction technologies often generate large amounts of undesirable
wastes. In that perspective, the development of selective, reusable,
and extremely efficient sorbents is needed. Among numerous ligands
used in the liquid–liquid extraction (LLE) process, the diglycolamide-based
(DGA) ligands play a leading role. Although these ligands display
notable extraction performance in the liquid phase, their extractive
chemistry is not widely studied when such ligands are tethered to
a solid support. A detailed understanding of the relationship between
chemical structure and function (i.e., extraction selectivity) at
the molecular level is still missing although it is a key factor for
the development of advanced sorbents with tailored selectivity. Herein,
a series of functionalized mesoporous silica (KIT-6) solid phases
were investigated as sorbents for the selective extraction of REEs.
To better understand the extraction behavior of these sorbents, different
spectroscopic techniques (solid-state NMR, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy,
XPS, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, FT-IR) were implemented.
The obtained spectroscopic results provide useful insights into the
chemical environment and reactivity of the chelating ligand anchored
on the KIT-6 support. Furthermore, it can be suggested that depending
on the extracted metal and/or structure of the ligand and its attachment
to KIT-6, different functional groups (i.e., C=O, N–H,
or silanols) act as the main adsorption centers and preferentially
capture targeted elements, which in turn may be associated with the
different selectivity of the synthesized sorbents. Thus, by determining
how metals interact with different supports, we aim to better understand
the solid-phase extraction process of hybrid (organo)silica sorbents
and design better extraction materials.